This invention relates to an apparatus for stripping a metal plate from a cathode base plate used for electrolytic refining, said metal plate being electrodeposited on said base plate.
Hitherto known apparatuses of this sort can be roughly classified into the following two types, namely, (1) an apparatus in which a pair of scrapers with wedges having a horizontal length substantially equivalent to the width of a cathode base plate (which will be called base plate hereinafter) is inserted at an upper corner at one side of an electrodeposited metal plate (which will be called metal plate hereinafter) between the base plate and the metal plate, first moving it horizontally to the other side, and then moving the scrapers vertically relative to the base plate to thereby peel off the metal plate from the base plate and (2) an apparatus in which a scraper is inserted between a base plate and a metal plate on one side of the metal plate, said scraper comprising a wedge which has a longitudinal length substantially equivalent to that of the metal plate and a part of the uppermost portion of which is edged, and moving the scraper as it stands horizontally to thereby peel off the metal plate from the base plate.
However, both apparatuses are defective in the following points: that because the scraper is designed to move horizontally over a very long distance, when a cylinder is employed as its working member, its piston rod inevitably must be long; that in order to avoid such trouble there must be employed a short stroke cylinder and accordingly there must be installed a stroke widening mechanism comprising rack, pinion and the like for the purpose of widening the short stroke of the piston rod; and further that because there is a necessity of installing a guide mechanism, such as a guide roller, slider or the like, in order to permit the scraper to move accurately covering a very long distance, it is unavoidable that both apparatuses on the whole should come to have an extremely complicated structure. Referring to the former, furthermore, it involves additional drawbacks in that because it has a need of employing a mechanism for vertical movement, the apparatus unavoidably becomes more complicated, difficult to operate and maintain, extremely high-priced and so forth.
Referring to the latter, it was still further defective in that, due to the fact that the wedge is pressed against the base plate covering the whole length of the stroke, the base plate is liable to extensive damage and abrasion.